


Chrononaut

by DevinTowerwood



Category: Life Is Strange
Genre: F/F, Fix It Fic, Max is kind of in love with everyone and that is canon, Multi, Post-Canon, sacrifice chloe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinTowerwood/pseuds/DevinTowerwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No more deaths. No more victims. Max is going to save them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Storm

The butterfly did not depart until it was time to put her in the ground. It could not stay for that. I understood, but after what I had just done, staying rooted was all that I could do.

I’m not going to talk about the funeral. I’m sorry but I can’t. Not yet. There was no wake in the traditional sense - everyone who mattered had come upon hearing the news Monday night.

What I can talk about is afterwards. Warren, Kate and I carpooled there, with Warren and I in the front and Kate in the back, but for the relatively quiet crying I had managed at the funeral, Kate could see that I would break as soon as we were in the car. I did not expect Victoria to be waiting for us there - I barely understood why she attended in the first place. She had walked away with Dana and Justin some time ago, but here she stood in her suit against Warren’s passenger door.

The breaking had begun before I even reached the car, as soon as Joyce and David could not see me anymore, and when Victoria could see this, Kate cradling me as we made our way back to the car, she pushed away from the car and strode over to Kate and I. I think she made a look at Kate first, I don’t know, but a moment later I found myself in Victoria’s strong arms against her collarbone and I never knew I could cry into her.  
“Max,” she said.  
It was five hours since Victoria had died, at least. Four since she’d lived. What could have possibly happened in those four hours for her to hold me?

Eventually, this too had to pass, but we stood swaying for maybe a minute while I fought to put myself back together. I did a shitty job, but eventually Victoria’s hands brought me a foot or so away. She was looking at me but I can’t exactly say I was doing the same.  
“I’ll see you back at the dorms,” she promised.

Kate and I got into the back seats of Warren’s car, and I lay my head into her lap. I don’t know how, but I slept.

It was the sound of rain that woke me. I did not register the sound, really, as sounds of all sorts, especially rain, had been omnipresent since I woke up in the dark room. It was just more sound, and it seemed no different than a dream. That was, until Kate nudged me awake, and my eyes slowly dragged open. I probably had not been out for more than thirty minutes, but everything seemed . . . noticeably darker.  
“We’re here,” Kate informed me as I slid my body up the seat, trying to regain awareness of my surroundings.  
We were back in the Blackwell parking lot, a few feet from where Chloe had nearly hit me with her car. Warren still sat in the driver’s seat, car turned off, seat belt off. Kate just seemed to be watching me.

“When did it start to rain?” came to my mouth before the thought even seemed to form, the light pit-pat-pit-pat along Warren’s hood and windshield.  
Warren shrugged, opening his door. “Maybe ten minutes ago? Doesn’t look too bad, but it’s pretty windy. We should get inside quickly.”

I slide out the right side of the car and become reacquainted with some of the cold that had eaten at me three hours ago. I held myself with my arms and walked along the others up the steps onto the main campus, moving quickly to escape the cold.  
It was still hot inside the dorms and everyone’s dorms were closed. While this was not entirely unusual, the silence in the middle of the day was, as classes had only ended an hour or so ago. Plenty of people, like Victoria, had cars and cruised around town, and it was not like people were unused to rain around here, but nevertheless plenty of people felt more secure surrounded by people their own age, and less than half the school was actually composed of local teens.

I wondered what I had missed, and why it was so quiet. But I wasn’t ready to go snooping just yet. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to snoop, really. My powers still felt so close at hand, that I knew that discontent would rise in my throat like bile and I would look for an excuse to change it again. But I had to let my hands lie. I couldn’t keep making the world my plaything.

I was surprised when Kate did not move towards her dorm room when we passed it, but instead followed me to my own. I figured she might just be walking me there, though, as if I would fall apart entirely in the eight steps that separated us, but when I opened the door, she took a step forward, then seeing that I didn’t immediately enter, withdrew the step. I looked at her blankly for a moment, the perplexity of her expression a mystery to me, but then I actually took a look into my room.  
The first detail was the most obvious, as my couch had been converted into a makeshift bed with a light sheet and a blanket and a pillow from Kate’s room. Alice’s cage sat in the corner of my room along with Lisa, who had somehow survived the week.  
All of the post-its were gone from my wall. I had never needed to research my time travel, because I had never used it.

Well, there weren’t a lot of people I could imagine spending so much time on the sofa that they’d need to construct a bed. Victoria was too tall. Warren wouldn’t be allowed here. And, well, Alice. Kate must have been keeping me company at night, keeping me safe.  
I turned back towards her. “I should probably be alone right now,” I offered, needing to locate my diary, my reminder, my beacon that this had all been true.

Kate shook her head and crossed her arms, although she could not obtain the haughty posture that Victoria typically wore. “I’m not leaving you alone right now, Max. I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”  
I swallowed, recognizing my own words. So, I had said them. I was in some derivative of that reality. Or maybe they were just the words I needed to say, and they came out at some point without me knowing.  
“Okay,” I forfeited, and we entered, Kate closing the door behind her.

We sat on my bed and I had nothing to say. It was just well-dressed silence underneath the glow of my lamps with the whispers of wind and sheets of rain, and we peeled off our coats to free us of the moisture. My hair was not so wet that it dripped, but it was enough that I could pull it back from my forehead while I leaned against my photo wall. I just closed my eyes because I did not know what to say, because for once I did not have a mission, for once I was not struggling against the clock - I was just supposed to walk away from a funeral and I was supposed to keep living like no part of me was forever buried in the earth. I was just supposed to start living now - that was the opportunity I had always had, and it was what I was left with now.

God, I could not stand the sound of the rain.

“I’m going to play something,” I announced, deadpan, and Kate only nodded with an ‘okay’ as she settled into the corner of my bed, retrieving her sketch pad from the ground beneath it along with a few supplies she placed on my covers. She placed her sketchbook in her lap as I placed my guitar in mine, and sat opposite of her in the bed.

I had to swallow a few times before I began, and my plucking was clumsy from the cold still. But slowly, I began to play.

_[“I heard there was a secret chord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0DKOGco_o) _  
_That David played and it pleased the lord_  
_But you don’t really care for music do you?_  
_It goes-”_

Kate added her beautiful, sweet voice along with mine, the raspy, useless shit, turning it slowly into music

 _“- like this: the fourth, the fifth,_  
_the minor fall and the major lift_  
_The baffled king composing Hallelujah._  
_Hallelujah, hallelujah_  
_Hallelujah, hallelujah_

 _“Your faith was strong but you needed proof_  
_You saw her bathing on the roof_  
_Her beauty in the moonlight_  
_O’rethrew you._  
_She tied you to a kitchen chair_  
_She broke your throne and she cut your hair_  
_And from your lips she drew the hallelujah_  
_Hallelujah, hallelujah_  
_Hallelujah, hallelujah_

 _“Maybe I have been here before_  
_I know this room; I’ve walked this floor_  
_I used to live alone before I knew you_  
_I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch_  
_Love is not a victory march_  
_It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah_  
_Hallelujah, ha-”_

Finally, I just couldn’t do it anymore. My hand lay flat over my strings and the tears that rightly stained my face began to drip like the rain onto my hand and the guitar’s body. Kate stopped singing in the same moment, and scooted cautiously over the bed before wrapping her arms around me, and I leaned my head against her shoulder as I choked in my throat that had the tightness of anger, or the tightness of Frank’s hand, or the tightness of failure.

“I’m weak.”

Kate had one arm around my shoulder and one in my wet hair, my face buried against her neck, and I could feel her chin as she shook her head just slightly.

“No, Max. You’re the strongest person I know.”

I wondered if I could have possibly have been there for Kate when she needed it this week. I know who I was when this week began, and there was no way she could have taken on the burden of what I’d left her with and still helped everyone who needed it. If Kate was okay, it wasn’t me who had saved her. It was justice, and I had not been the one to bring that. Chloe had been the source of justice, the catalyst of us all being alive, here, and safe. And it sickened me to realize how often that is exactly how it often seems to work - justice comes at an unjust price. It’s never the right people who suffer, not really.

But, if anything could keep me safe from myself, it just might be Kate Marsh’s beating heart.

Eventually, I took the strap of the guitar off and lay it back against the couch across the room, then lay back down into Kate’s lap as she leaned back up against the wall, and just tried to do my best to relax emotionally in the same way one might relax their muscles - by squeezing them tight to exhaust them. And that was precisely how my feelings would have to go. I’d just just have to feel them now, while I was safe, and maybe they could bleed away.

My feelings had had no such time by the time I got a text that I promptly ignored. However, when a few more came in succession, I could ignore them no longer, and I pulled out my phone, swiping right to look at the lot of them.

 

> **Warren:**  Hey, the storm is actually getting pretty bad out there.  
>  **Warren:**  I went to go get some dinner with Alyssa but it looks like there’s a big storm coming. There’s like lightning and stuff.  
>  **Warren:**  Yeah, this looks really shitty - the wind’s picking up a lot and it’s raining a lot harder. Some students are coming out near the beach to take pictures but I think we’re going to come back soon to avoid getting caught out in this.  
>  **Warren:**  Fuck.  
>  **Warren:**  I think that might be a hurricane.

I don’t know how long I stared at them. I thought for a moment that I was back there, in photo after photo, reality after reality, living my nightmares over and over again. But then, Warren sent me an attached picture as well.

_No. No. No. There is no way._

But there it was. There was the monster that devoured them all again and again. There was the storm, captured on some shitty iPhone camera. It was distant still, far away from the bay, but there it was, heading straight towards Arcadia Bay.

 

> **Max:** Warren, get Alyssa and anyone else at the diner out of there. Get Frank out too - he’s the scary guy with all the neck tattoos. If you think you have time, head to the light house - I know it’s safe.

I looked up to Kate, who was watching me concerned when I rolled off her lap to shoot off the text, then pulled myself up to my knees.  
“Kate,” I said, almost immediately steeled, though that came with a feeling of numbness everywhere; “I’ve got to get to the beach - there’s a storm coming and people are going to get hurt. Do you know anyone with a car that we could borrow? Warren’s gone, and, uh, so is Evan.”

Kate’s face was back to confusion. “What do you mean, Max? There’s just supposed to be a little bit of rain today, no storm.”

I clicked the image on my messages and turned the enlarged photo around to Kate so that she could look at it. Her hand slowly made its way to her face, covering her mouth in slow-growing shock. Meanwhile, I looked back down to my messages, quickly addressing one to Joyce.

 

> **Max:** Joyce, it’s Max. You and David have got to get out of town. A gigantic storm is coming to Arcadia and it’s not safe where you are. North is safe. Please trust me.

“I, um, I think Juliet drives and has a car.”

Another message came in.

 

> **Warren:**  I think that’s a good idea. Too much weird shit has happened this week to risk it. Why the light house? That’s an awfully exposed place.

“Yes, please, ask her if I can borrow it, Kate. I need to prepare real quick - we’ve got to be ready to help people get out of there. Or, I do. You don’t need to go - you should try and find a way out of town, actually.”

It probably scared Kate how I was acting, after barely being able to move, to talking rapid-fire while texting, before slipping my phone away.

 

> **Max:**  Just trust me. The storm is heading straight towards the town - just stand back a little from the light house and you’ll be fine.

With it away, I stood up on my bed and began to peel pictures off of my wall, flipping them over to check the dates on the back as I went. I had no idea where I would even need to go, so I finally just began to tear them all down and form them into a stack - after a bit, Kate finally listened to me and left my room, probably scared of the transition in my behavior.  
I had only managed to shove all 80 or so photos into my bag before Juliet entered the room along with Kate.

“Hey there Max - uh, what’s this I hear about a hurricane?”

I zipped up my bag and sat it down for a moment, while I paced over to my closet to pull out a coat better at keeping out the rain than the shawl I’d been wearing a moment ago. “A storm is coming to town, Juliet, and it’s going to destroy everything. I can still help people get out of there if I go now, though, so I need a car-” I informed without pausing, just slinging my bag over my shoulder and pulling down my coat “- and ah, so do you guys too, I realize, unless Blackwell comes with its own bunker. Otherwise everyone needs to get to the city light house as soon as possible. Oh! Victoria. Victoria has a car. She can get you there.”

Juliet was incredibly confused, but a lot more assertive than Kate who just sort of took these things, and insisted, “Whoah, whoah, slow down Max. We’re pretty deep into town, and hurricanes aren’t exactly a common problem on the west coast. Are you s . . . hey, Max are you okay?”

I was so used to the sensation by now that I barely even noticed until the streams of blood reached my lips, and as I reached my fingers up to dab away the liquid, concerned with my inability to bring my fingertips into focus. And then I realized that the blurriness was not in my eyes, but in my head.  
“Oh, god, no . . .”  
But I could feel them. I could feel the burning edges of the frame of reality crushing inward, and my vision beginning to disappearing. As my eyes met Kate’s, I wondered what she could see on my face. There must have been fear, because it wasn’t until now that such an expression came to her face.

 

* * *

 

 

When everything came back into focus, I was quick to recognize the location, as I had been there so recently. I stood on the beach at the beginning of the path to the lighthouse while sharp splinters of water cut across my face, and I stared out across the tumultuous waves at the pillar of wind and water. I had changed nothing.  
But who stood around me this time reminded me of my choice - Warren, Kate, Alyssa, Juliet, Victoria, Taylor, Dana, and Evan.

The strange thing was how they would not move. Their bodies stood rigid as they watched the oncoming storm, unblinking as the rain pelted their bodies.  
“Everyone!?” I asked at a yell, but no one responded in the slightest. They were frozen, frozen in time, their bodies refusing to come into focus on the beach, though as I turned back towards the oncoming storm, it was clear that it was not suffering the same problem.

Lightning struck somewhere in the distance, and a second later, a wave of thunder struck us, nearly deafening me before it faded away, the scar of the lightning’s flash still on my eyes. I blinked over and over to clear it from my sight, but the sea was not as I had left it a moment before.  
It stood like glass, its entire surface a mirror as far as I could perceive. The great column of a storm finally stood still, as did millions of tiny droplets of water in every direction.

And the path had returned. The broken path formed of nothing but pieces of memory, but there were no memories to be seen along it. It simply extended from the beach a few steps ahead of me out, just inches above the still water, out and out until it could be seen no longer. But It was clear to me where it lead, for it no longer snaked around - instead, it was straight and bland, like a cement sidewalk, straight towards the body of the storm.

I looked at the sign, indicating the path towards the light house, but it hung down, like a single joint had fallen loose, and the path it indicated was opposite of normal, out towards the beach. Someone had spray painted over the text with three bold letters.

## MAX

I was still here. I was still in my nightmare. None of this was over yet.

I climbed over the fence slowly, and plodded over the wet sand, taking the steep step onto the narrow path and looking down towards my destination.

_Am I the price it demands? The sin and the sinner? Will it be happy then?_

I began to walk, watching the towering reflection of the storm in the water beneath me, as if I could somehow see every detail of it from this distance. It was strange how much it still felt like it was raining as I walked, for every drop of water I passed through clung to me, then dripped off, suspended back in space as soon as it left me.

I don’t know how long the walk was. It could not have been that long, with how close the storm had drawn in such a short time. It was only a fifteen minute walk to the light house, and that forced you to walk north just to come parallel to the storm. Nevertheless, with every step identical to the last, minutes stretched on and on, the only indication of my approach the growing mass of the storm and the shrinking border of Arcadia Bay behind me.  
But, eventually, there it was. It is impossible to define the borders of a storm like this when it is moving, but with every particle still like this, it felt like a curtain - just an ever-increasing density of water to soak me like a pool.

And I pushed through it. I had to close my eyes, but I pushed through the water so dense that I thought it could drown me, and just continued forward through it for what must have been hundreds of feet and . . .

And it ended. I was just walking into empty space, no more of the frigid rain to cling to my body. And my eyes opened.  
I found myself standing over a scene too familiar in a pillar of light. Below me stood myself, me, Max, her arms wrapped around Chloe’s shoulders, her own face in her hands. And the words came from the borders of the light, as if spoken just beyond a veil:

_“Oh no, Rachel?  
What kind of world does this?”_

No, no, back here. The same path. I could see it all again, stretching out beyond, each scene within its own light - but there was no light behind me, just a void. My nightmare.

I could not listen to these all again. I ran along the path, letting them all blur by before they could say too much:

_“Look at all these files  
_

_“Well, thanks for the morning grope,  
_

_“You understand what I’m saying, right?  
_

_“I am awesome!  
_

_Rachel straight-up lied to my face!”_

But then, then, there was one not like the others. It was different. It was wrong. I came to a stop suddenly, and I just stared as the words came.

_“I double dare you. Kiss me now.  
_

_“Whoah Max, you’re hardcore.”_

But it was wrong. Chloe just stood there, her hands hovering in the air, her eyes closed, lips pursed to meet nothing. I was not there. I was nowhere to be seen.  
All the other lights went out, and I was left alone just inside the circle of light with Chloe, beautiful Chloe, in her black t-shirt and tiny shorts with her tattoo wrapping around her right arm, which hung out to hold my hips that were there no longer.

Why. Why would this nightmare not end? Why did I have to keep reliving my life over and over, the parts that I could never truly have again, why?

But I understood. I had so many of these nightmares, I knew what they demanded of me. At least it was nothing as absurd as that walk of shame through the diner . . . it was just a kiss.  
I stepped forward towards the unresponsive Chloe, and I took a moment to reach my hand out to hers. Despite how unmoving, unmoveable she was, she was so warm, though without a pulse. It’s impossible to live outside of time, after all. But not to exist.  
I stepped between her arms until they hovered just around me, and brought my hands up to her cheeks. I had to be damp and horrible, but she was so warm, and she did not flinch. I just stood up on my toes, eyes closed, and pressed my lips against a girl who could not kiss back.

But she did. We were not soaked in the rain like we were by the light house, and she did not take a step back in shock like she did in her bedroom. Instead, it was just the warmth of her lips against mine, gentle and perfect for a moment. Her hands finally closed the distance between us, holding me close against her body.

“Chloe,” I gasped, and my eyes shot open, but she was not there. Instead, my eyes were partially covered by the nearly-translucently-thin wings of a blue butterfly, its wings gently fluttering up and down as it kept itself steady, as if perched on the bridge of my nose.  
It hesitated there a moment, but then it took flight with no perceptible weight, flying in a small arc over my head before it drifted towards the edge of the light.

I followed. I did not know what else I could possibly do - this was my only guide, my only connection. This butterfly was there in the darkest moments, but I still believed it could guide me into the light.  
And, in a sense, it did. Another beam of light appeared.

_“Photo bomb!  
_

_“Photo hog.”_

Loud, strangely loud over the voices of me and Chloe from beyond, I heard the Polaroid print out of my camera just as the butterfly alighted onto it. I followed, pulling the picture from its place and waving it for a moment as the image began to clear, then stowed it in my bag.

The butterfly took flight again, and began to lead me slowly, slowly through my memories again, but it did not pause on these others like those before it. Each image took me further and further back, but I just needed to know, needed to know what this butterfly was here to show me.

Eventually we reached the scene where it started, where we were reunited: the two of us peeling out of the Blackwell parking lot. But the buttterfly just glided over the hood of Chloe’s car, and I paced beyond, not even turning to look as I refused to meet Chloe’s eye, ashamed that I had not taken the chance to speak to her upon returning to Arcadia Bay. Ashamed that I’d never speak to her.

The butterfly led me into darkness, but I just followed along, still feeling the same steady ground as before as all the lights behind me again went out.  
And then, the light returned. The descended once again, alighting on the corner of the sink. I stood, looming as I rarely found possible, over myself, huddled against the last bathroom stall, a fallen photograph of the butterfly discarded by the bucket it had been shot on. And the words came, because they just wouldn’t stop coming.

_“Let’s talk bidness  
_

_Oh, boo hoo, little rich kid_

_I bet your respectable family would help me if I went to them_

_Where did you get that? Put that thing away”_

I turned the corner of the stall, because this time I had to look. But, visually, the scene had already played out - Chloe lay on the ground in a pool of her own blood, while Nathan clutched the sides of his head in distress.

_“You’re gonna get in hella more trouble for this than drugs.  
_

_“Get away from me, psycho!”_

The sentence wasn’t even punctuated with gunfire, because it didn’t need to be - here she lay, bleeding, dying, while I huddled, crying behind the bathroom stalls.  
And finally, I understood. I understood why those scenes had been different. I reached back into my bag, and somehow, miraculously, the first photo I drew out was the correct one. Me and Chloe, our faces side by side - her bright grin and my content smile, as we lay together on Chloe’s bed.

Chloe’s arms were outstretched uselessly, paralyzed to push Nathan away from her, to save her from the bullet that ate into her anyway. I stepped past the boy, and I crouched down beside my best friend as she lay dying. I reached out and placed the picture in her hand, and found her fingers malleable, as I managed to pinch her thumb and index finger together to hold the photo out in front of her, so she could look at our smiling faces.  
I lowered my head next to hers, much like we were in the photo, and gazed at that last, lovely moment.

I was so practiced by this point, that I barely had to concentrate before the photo began to resonate once again, this time from the photo, not the borders of nothing.

 _“Photo bomb!”_  Chloe called. And the words reverberated as they could not possibly within the small space of the bathroom, just a quiet echo into nothing.

_Flash._

I blinked my eyes to clear away the brightness, but there was no camera aimed at me when my vision came into focus, nor any lightning. Instead, I stood behind a tripod, and my face just inches away from a professional camera, and I gazed out at an unfamiliar scene in a familiar place.

I stood at the edge of the framed white space of the dark room. The rolling tray of GHB vials and syringes stood on the far left of the room, just outside of the neat frame. Lain on her side just as I had been, Rachel Amber’s eyes were closed, and she almost looked asleep.  
I searched around me, expecting to find Jefferson here, lurking, watching, but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I found only Nathan, sitting, frozen at the desk in front of the computer, holding his chin with his left hand and his right hand on the mouse. At least, I could not find Jefferson until I looked down at my own hands, and found my skin darker, my arms covered in hair, my wrist wrapped in a watch instead of my stress bands. I wore a button-up shirt and slacks and I was Jefferson.

Was she dead at this point? I had no way to check without breathing, without a pulse, and there were no voices telling me about what had been.  
I walked over to her and crouched down by her, trying to find any indication that she was alive. But there was nothing. She was just limp while I tried to salvage what I could from a dead subject.

_What . . . what is in her mouth?_

The voice finally came. My own, though I had never spoken these words out loud. They were just thoughts, but thoughts attached to a loudspeaker. And, indeed, I noticed it again - the slight bulge in her cheeks like a cylinder, subtle but impossible in a face with no tension left. And, like Chloe, I found her body malleable when I reached down. I opened her jaw slightly, and with my too-large, too-rough hands, reached inside of her mouth until my fingers came into contact with something loose, pinching it slightly to draw it out, slowly, slowly.

I didn’t even recognize what I was looking at, at first. It was pale and green, a few centimeters long and about as wide as my thumb. It looked like a leaf wrapped around itself, but shiny all along its surface, like lamination. It wasn’t until it began to bulge out and break apart that I recognized it for what it was - a chrysalis.  
It was a slow process, but bit by bit, the chrysalis was torn apart from the inside as the first cracks in the hull turned into a gaping hole, and slowly, slowly, the butterfly emerged out onto my cupped palms. But it was unlike any true butterfly, because as soon as it was free, it seemed to grow in my hands, and stretch its wings wide.

And then, there was a flash of light.


	2. Belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max comes face to face with Rachel Amber. She finally realizes what she has to do to stop the storm, to Chloe, to save everybody.

_ _

_Art by[Raaimu](http://raaimu.tumblr.com/)_

Read the story on **[Tumblr](http://meditatemoremedicateless.tumblr.com/chrononaut) ** or [**AO3**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5062309/chapters/11642818)

It wasn’t like the flash of lightning that left me blinded. The white faded from my vision in an instant, and yet still I had no way to identify what I was seeing for a long time. It was gray-blue inside with lines of golden sunlight, but every opening that may have been a window was filled with darkness, leaving me boxed into this tiny structure, made smaller by the density of junk left on every surface.  
But all that junk was familiar, though the girl who sat in the center of the room was not. This was Rachel and Chloe’s hideout in the junkyard, just as I had seen it before Chloe had been shot - the smear of blood-red paint proclaiming  **‘You’re all gonna die’** still remained. The girl who sat curled on the couch, though, didn’t belong. A curtain of dull, dirty-blonde hair separated the profile of her face from me, though I could see that her skin was sallow and clung to her bones. Despite the sun streaming in, it was clear she had not seen sunlight for a long time. All of this left her thoroughly unrecognizable, except for that flat, snaking tattoo of a dragon up her right thigh.

Where the sunlight pushed its way inside, I could see the movement of dust motes in the air, cast about in their patterned but indeterminable way. Time was moving.  
“Rachel?” I asked, just above a whisper.

Then, they appeared. All over the walls and all over the ground: photos of Rachel Amber, though she was never alone in them. Nathan. Frank. Evan. Daniel. Chloe. Many more that I did not recognize. I began to walk around, careful to step on as few as possible, inspecting them each that I could in turn. After hundreds of the missing persons posters, seeing Rachel animate as she was in so many of these photos - always smiling, frequently dynamically posed - was a little shocking in comparison. The posters had left me feeling like she were some sort of Mona Lisa, like she knew something that I didn’t and I’d never be able to understand. But in these, she looked just like a girl with sharp features and hair more golden than I’d seen outside of a shampoo commercial. Whoever she was with looked plain and awkward in comparison. Nobody looked as much like they belonged as much in the frame as she did.

I walked in an arc behind her, not wanting to come face to face with this pale, withered imitation of the girl I saw in photographs, her hair a veil between us. Her head never turned to face me, but I could hear her as she breathed in and out.  
Eventually, though, there was nothing else to distract me. One photo, two photo, three photo, many photos. Rachel Amber. None of these were her anymore. Instead, I was left only to sit on the couch as far away from her as I could while still making sure she could see me.

If she could, she didn’t show it. She stared mostly down at the couch, or perhaps at the floor, only the smallest movements of her eyes betraying her consciousness.

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to get her to acknowledge me. This place was just like my nightmare, except I don’t think it was my nightmare anymore. I had no memories of Rachel to be drawn out, and I would never have imagined her as this creature in front of me.  
No. This was Rachel. This was her, finally.

“Rachel?” I asked again. “My name is Max. I’m a friend of Chloe’s.”

There was finally movement in her eyes, slow though it was. Her eyes met mine, but her look was dull, muted like the rest of hers. The motion I had taken for consciousness, I realized, was nystagmus, her eyes shaking back and forth while betraying nothing inside. Her pupils were massive, and in the darkness I could not see what color her eyes were, as if there were a void instead of a girl inside.

I thought, then, that perhaps she really could not see me. Perhaps I was not even really here, or she wasn’t, and this was just some new piece of the nightmare, meant to keep me from something else I had believed in this week.

But then her lips parted, and although her voice was hoarse and shaky, she managed a name: “Chloe?”

There was a quality to her voice that send terror to my heart in that one word. Everything else I had seen here was only a reflection of things I had seen. But this voice was frayed from a lack of use, like something I had never heard before.

I nodded along, hoping that this would restore some life in her. “Yes, yes, Chloe. She's been looking for you, trying to save you for so long, ever since you went missing.”

I wished she would blink. I wished I could look away from those eyes that never perfectly focused on me but somehow drew me closer, leaning forward in the couch to see them more clearly.

“I’m not lost,” she replied.  
There was silence after she said that. I had no idea what to even say. She wasn’t lost, we had only believed that. We had wanted to believe that. And wanting to believe that had stopped us from finding her, hadn’t it?  
She broke the silence and said, “I belong here.”

I knew she didn’t mean this clubhouse. No, she meant everything else: this pervading darkness that devoured the sunlight outside, the prison made of photographs, the heart of this storm.  
I shook my head, finally letting myself break her unwavering gaze. “No, Rachel. Nobody belongs here. You belong. . .” I realized quickly that I had absolutely no idea where Rachel belonged, that I knew absolutely nothing about Rachel. Yet still, I lifted my hand and gestured out the door, “anywhere but here.”

The photographs on every surface changed without motion. One moment, they depicted hundreds of moments, and then, they only showed one, and it was familiar to me.  
I picked up one of the photos from the coffee table and held it up to see clearly. The photograph was of Rachel sitting in the driver’s seat of Frank’s RV - the mess made it immediately recognizable. She was smiling, like she finally had the freedom she’d been looking for wrapped in her hands.

Finally, her mouth contorted into something that may have been a grimace, although it was clear that she was struggling to make any expression at all. She closed her eyes as her whole face slowly pinched, and I realized she was recalling something.  
“L.A.,” she said, and it was like a soft exhale, as if I weren’t supposed to hear it at all. In the oppressive silence, I could hear everything, even my pulse.

She was remembering.

_Yes, come on Rachel. Remember. Remember!_

I nodded along again, scooting forward a little in my excitement. “Yes, Rachel. You belong in L.A. You were going to be a model, right? You were going to go with-”

Before I could say ‘Chloe’, she took the words from me, “Frank.”  
And she wasn’t looking at me anymore. The photos all around us changed again into hundreds of new photos, some I had seen before, most that I hadn’t, and some, some that didn’t seem to have been taken by anyone at all. They were all of Frank: alone, with Rachel, with Pompidou, with . . .

The photo in my hand is one of the last I look at, but I know immediately what I’m looking at.

“Nathan,” she said, and this time it sounded like she was holding back bile.

The photo in my hand did not change, but all the others did, like before. Hundreds of photos of Nathan, everywhere. But none were quite like the one I held, a photo no one could have taken, a low view of Frank handing several vials and a small plastic box to Nathan. If it hadn’t been for the events of this morning, I would have had no idea what those vials were, but they were familiar to me.  
They were the drugs that I had been had dosed with. Over and over in the junkyard, in the dark room.

Suddenly, it hit me. I don’t know if it was because I was back in that club house, or if the progression seemed natural knowing where those drugs were going. But there was a puzzle that had only needed one more piece in my mind, and solving it left me with a feeling of breathlessness, of vertigo.

“Jefferson,” I said. The man Rachel had written about in her letter, the person she had needed to confess for seeing, it had never been Frank. It was Jefferson.

The photos in the room did not become pictures of Jefferson, like I expected. No, what I saw instead filled me with nausea: it was like the contents of every red binder had been spilled out, and hundreds of photos of teenage girls, bound up with rope or duct tape or plastic, lay everywhere.  
The photo in my hand, this time, was of me, and my blank eyes staring back at me.

I wanted to throw up, I wanted to scream. It was like I was bound again, like I couldn’t move, couldn’t quite see, couldn’t quite think.

And Rachel was gone.  
For a brief second, I thought she had just vanished into thin air, but then I heard her voice behind me, “They betrayed me.”

Her voice wasn’t hoarse anymore. It was clear, high, and insistent, and I felt like I could feel her breath on my ear. It was just like when Kate appeared in my nightmare, repulsed by my attempts to save her.  
But there was some poison in my veins, and I could not say anything. I just fell forward on the couch, barely able to hold myself up on my hands and knees.

I could just barely make out the bottom of her legs, her feet near the doorway. Her voice was harsh, loud, angry: “They killed me.”

And then, she was on her knees right in front of me on the couch. She said nothing at first, but she reached down, using her fingers to lift my head up, up so far and so uncomfortably that I could see her eyes.

She growled through gritted teeth, “Fuck you.” And the fingers underneath my chin twisted, her hand underneath my throat. I could see the photos on the wall suddenly fly off, whipping around the room as a powerful wind blew inside.  
  
She was screaming, now, but I couldn’t pull away: “YOU CAN’T SAVE ME!”

The room began to break apart, huge chunks torn away as the wind became vicious. The ceiling disappeared, then the photos flew away, everything until it was just me and Rachel on that couch, and I couldn’t breath.

As if she were no material at all, the storm pulled, and Rachel broke apart, no blood or bone but water, water everywhere, soaking everything, flooding everywhere.

And I was falling through the storm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

My clothes, my skin were soaked all the way through as I stood at the base of the light house, welcomed back to my hell as if nothing had ever happened. Except there was still one thing different: I was here alone.

Somewhere off to my right, I could still see the storm. There was still the hush over the hill, like all of the sound were eaten up inside that swirling mass. The frigid rain left a weight on my body, blocked out almost all sound.

I couldn’t stop the storm. Chloe’s death couldn’t stop it. Finding Rachel could not stop it. She was lost amidst her own nightmare, and, if I was right, she had become the storm. No matter what I did, somewhere on the beach, my friends were waiting for Rachel to come and destroy them. Even if they made it up here in time, the storm would devour Arcadia Bay and everyone left in it.

I approached the edge of the cliff, closer than I had dared myself when I appeared in this timeline.  
This storm. Rachel. Whatever it was, whatever she was.  
They were not taking anything more away from me.

I shouted into the pelting rain, “I CAN SAVE YOU, RACHEL! I CAN SAVE YOU!”

The storm did not seem to care, but in that moment, that only made my anger burn brighter.  
“CHLOE NEVER BETRAYED YOU, DID SHE? SHE WOULD HAVE DIED TO SAVE YOU, LIKE SHE DIED FOR THIS TOWN YOU’RE TRYING TO DESTROY.”

It still wasn’t good enough.  
“NO MORE VICTIMS, RACHEL, DO YOU HEAR ME? I’M GOING TO SAVE THEM ALL!”

The storm did not abate, but I knew something was different. I could feel something behind me, and when I turned, I could see it shining in the darkness, just at the end of the trail leading up here.

I thought she had abandoned me. The doe. She was there, watching me, unperturbed despite the rain.

I thought: _I’m right. This isn’t over._

And then, she turned and fled down the path.

“Wait!” I called after her, and began to run.

The path had effectively turned to sludge, but there was enough gravel that I didn't slip. None of the obstacles that confronted me during my vision on this path slowed me down, and every time I turned a corner I could see the light from my doe a dozen paces ahead, disappearing until I cought up again.  
I could barely see the forest around me once the light house is out of view. Just once I thought I was nearing the base of the path, that I could see the doe waiting for me just a little ways beyond, I slipped in the mud, my legs sweeping out from under me.

I didn’t hit the ground that hard, but I heard a crushing sound as my back met the mud.

_No, no, no, please._

I sat up and reached for my bag strap, hoisting it over my head before setting it down in my lap. I unzipped it, but could see nothing inside, so I reached for my camera, hoping that it was unbroken.

There was a sudden sting along my finger, and, realizing I’d cut myself, I drew my hand back out. There was glass in my bag. “What the fuck?”

I turned my bag on its side and shook it, quickly recognizing what the problem was. Shards of glass and photos were all that fell out at first, but then my yellow camera followed as well. The lens and viewfinder had been crushed, rendering the camera useless for the who-knows-how-many time this week.

_Fuck._

Looking up, I realized I could not see the doe anywhere.  
All I had left were the photos I had brought from my room.

I knew what the price would be. I remembered the red walls that ate the dark room while the storm raged, I remembered the bleeding reality where I had shredded my Everyday Heroes photo. I remember the feeling of my ribs crushing in my chest, of the taste of blood in my mouth as I pushed against time.

But I also remembered the rules, and for once, I thought time was a game I could play. Lots of small rewinds hurt me, but rarer, longer jumps didn’t. The further I pulled back time, the further things deviated from what they had once been, like shooting a rubber band. And every time I photo-jumped, only the things from that point on could be altered.

_Come on. One more jump, Max. You can do it._

But, to what day?

There was one date that stood out immediately, just from the sheer number of times I had seen it. April 22, 2013. That was the day that Chloe marked as the day that Rachel disappeared. 

I planned out everything that I would need to do while I used my camera flashlight to read the dates on the back of my photos.  
It took me longer than I would have liked, but within a few minutes, I had sifted through the first few dozen and found one very close to the date, my best bet.

**4/18/13**

I flipped the photo over to get an idea of where I was, hoping for a clear memory. It looked like any other picture of me and Fernando, though, somewhere on the streets of Seattle.

Come on Max, think.

4/18. Would that have been spring break? I think so. What day trips did I take with Fernando over spring break?

With a rush of relief, I remembered how much less social I had been back in Seattle. I had spent almost my entire spring break on a binge of _Skyrim_. What had Fernando dragged me out to see? 

The zoo! Right, because Fernando loves animals. Fuck, yes.

Good, good. That should be enough.  
I shone my light on the face of the photo, and tried to concentrate. Come on, what had it felt like, what was the sun like, what was . . .

_Flash_

I was so prepared for the sudden transition into Seattle that I nearly dropped my camera. It took me an extra second just to remember to handle it carefully, pulling the photo out and waving it for a few seconds before sticking it back in my bag.

“Hey, Max, do you wanna-”

“One sec.”

“Huh?”

“Freddie, I’ve got to make a call. It’s urgent.”

“Uhh,” I don’t know whether it was my tone, or my look, or the words I said that made Fernando pause with confusion, but I think the change was severe enough for him not to question me, “yeah, totally.”

“Thanks. I’ll just be a moment.”

I couldn’t even see all the way across the street thanks to the edges of the photograph - passing cars and pedestrians appeared to just phase in and out of reality about thirty feet away.

As I scrolled through my contacts, I figured I had two, maybe three minutes to complete the call before I was ripped from this point in time. This was the last photo I had taken before Rachel’s disappearance, so I wasn’t going to get a second chance.

**_Dialing Chloe Price . . ._ **

Her: “Uh, hello?”

Her voice. How have I even had time to miss it? It’s distorted and guarded, but that’s Chloe voice.  
_Thank God._

 _Me:_  “Hey, Chloe. It’s me, Max Caulfield, and I have to talk to you right now.”

I could hear her reeling with an ‘uhhh’ for several seconds. I realized how strange this must be from her end, but there was no time to make it any less awkward.

 _Her:_ “Uhhhh, all right dude, what’s so serious?”

Me: “I know this is going to sound super fucked up and weird, but have you heard from Rachel recently? Rachel Amber.”

 _Her:_  “What . . . the actual fuck, dude. Have you been stalking my Facebook or something.”

 _Me:_ “I know it’s weird, but please answer me: have you heard from her?”

I could hear her issue a long exhale, and I hoped that meant that she was thinking.

 _Her:_  “I mean, no, not for a week or something. I mean, that happens though, she gets busy with stuff. Why?”

I took a breath to steel myself, because I knew I was going to have to ignore her protests, and my time was running short.  
I crouched down, tucking my phone between my ear and my shoulder, and retrieved my journal and a pen while I talked.

 _Me:_  “Look, Chloe. I can’t tell you exactly how I know, but I can tell you that Rachel is in danger. Life-threatening danger, do you understand me?”

Her: “Max, what the fuck are you-”

 _Max:_  “No, Chloe, I need you, please, I need you to listen to me. Sometime very soon, Rachel is going to be kidnapped by Nathan Prescott. He is going to dose her, probably at a party, take her, and she will overdose. Do you understand me? You need to find her right now.”

 _Her:_  “Wait, wait, what? What? Nathan . . . Nathan?”

Her breathing was faster almost immediately. I couldn’t even understand, knowing what I knew, how she could possibly believe me, but she said

 _Her:_  “Wait, a party? Like, a Vortex Club party?”

 _Me:_ “Yes, actually, that’s probably where. Is there one happening before Monday?”

 _Her:_  “No, dude, there’s one tonight, Trevor was talking about it.”

The edges of the photograph were beginning to pull in on me - I could hear the sound of the cars and the people fading out as, foot by foot, the world began to disappear. I was getting my notes down, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell Chloe enough before I disappeared.

 _Me:_  “Okay, Chloe. Nathan is doing this for Mark Jefferson, a teacher at Blackwell. If you have to let Nathan take her, do it, she’ll be alive for a few hours. He is going to take her to a barn out in the woods.”

I glanced up, and knew I had only seconds left.

 _Me:_ “My time is running out - if you call me back, I won’t know we had this conversation. But, Chloe? Find the barn, call the police, and save Rachel. They will kill you if they know you know, do you hear me? They have guns.”

I expected her to yell, to escalate in her confusion. Instead,

 _Her:_  “Max, I . . .”

It was too slow, and I could feel the world pulling against my skin, the edges of the frame burning as reality fell apart.

 _Me:_  “Save her, please. And Chloe? I,”

I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I never knew if the words made it past my lips, because I was falling away, falling far into the future.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There was silence from the other end of the phone for a long second while I waited for some conclusion, some clarification. When it didn’t come, I asked,

 _Me:_  “Max? Max, are you still there?”

 _Her:_  “Chloe? Chloe is that you?”

 _Me:_  “Huh? Yeah, Max, it’s still me. How am I supposed to find the barn, Max?”

When the conversation turned to chaos, I stepped outside of the Two Whales, pacing back and forth in the back alley, where they were clearly desperately waiting for a trash pick up.

 _Her:_ “Uhh . . . what barn? Did I call you?”

I stopped dead in my tracks at that, lifting the phone away from my ear to look at the caller ID.

_**Max Caulfield**  
3:31_

And, I remembered what she said.

 _Me:_  “Max . . . do you remember the conversation we just had? About Rachel, and Nathan, and the teacher?”

 _Her:_  “I . . . I guess I don’t, sorry.”

There was a few seconds where her voice was muffled on the other end, like she was talking to someone else. Meanwhile, frustration and rage began to boil up in me faster than I knew it could, but I kept my voice calm, I think.

 _Me:_ “Max? Were you just playing some sort of sick prank on me?”

 _Her:_  “No? I mean, I don’t think so . . .”

There was another lengthy pause.

 _Her:_ “I just wrote in my journal to take a selfie every time you call, and to keep it in my bag, always. The word always is underlined . . . do you know what’s going on? I’m. I’m freaking out a little.”

Max couldn’t remember. Max could not remember the phone call we just had, for real.

 _Me:_  “I think you should listen to that, Max. I will call you back . . . fuck, fuck, okay. I’m just going to go find Rachel, okay?”

 _Her:_  “Well, um. Okay.”

The girl I was talking to right now was not the one who called me. Her voice was unsteady, unsure, and clearly had no clue what the fuck I was talking about. Max had never been a talented liar or actor, and I doubt she had developed these skills just to become the world’s biggest asshole and internet stalker.

 _Her:_ “It was nice to hear from you again, Chlo. I . . . I don’t know what’s going on but I’m glad I called you.”

I wasn’t sure I could say the same on many, many levels.

 _Me:_  “Yeah. Bye, Max.”

And the call ended with a quick push of a button.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try and tie up each and every loose end of the entire game. Every. Fucking. One.
> 
> Edit: Across several stories. Trying to tie them up all here, now, would lead me to many redundant scenarios. Check out _Prescott_ and _Life in Snippets_ for more hole-filling.


End file.
